Guidebook writer: I have visited hotels throughout the country and have noticed that in those built before 1930 the quality...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
Guidebook writer: I have visited hotels throughout the country and have noticed that in those built before 1930 the quality of the original carpentry work is generally superior to that in hotels built afterward. Clearly carpenters working on hotels before 1930 typically worked with more skill, care, and effort than carpenters who have worked on hotels built subsequently.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the guidebook writer's argument?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| I have visited hotels throughout the country and have noticed that in those built before 1930 the quality of the original carpentry work is generally superior to that in hotels built afterward. |
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| Clearly carpenters working on hotels before 1930 typically worked with more skill, care, and effort than carpenters who have worked on hotels built subsequently. |
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Argument Flow:
The writer starts with a personal observation about carpentry quality differences between old and new hotels, then jumps to a conclusion about the carpenters themselves being different in skill and effort levels.
Main Conclusion:
Carpenters working before 1930 had more skill, care, and effort than carpenters working after 1930.
Logical Structure:
The argument assumes that the only explanation for better carpentry work in older hotels is that the carpenters themselves were better workers. It's a simple cause-and-effect claim where observed quality differences are attributed directly to worker differences.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Weaken - We need to find information that would reduce our belief in the conclusion that pre-1930 carpenters were more skilled, careful, and effortful than post-1930 carpenters
Precision of Claims
The author makes a quality comparison (superior vs inferior carpentry) and attributes it to worker characteristics (skill, care, effort levels). The conclusion is about the typical performance of two groups of workers across different time periods
Strategy
To weaken this argument, we need to find alternative explanations for why pre-1930 hotel carpentry looks better today. The author jumps from observing better carpentry quality to concluding that the workers themselves were better. We should look for other factors that could explain this quality difference without questioning the fact that pre-1930 carpentry does look better
This choice tells us that hotel carpentry is generally superior to carpentry in other buildings like houses and stores. However, this doesn't help explain why pre-1930 hotel carpentry is better than post-1930 hotel carpentry. We're comparing hotels to hotels across time periods, not hotels to other types of buildings. This choice is irrelevant to the argument about temporal differences in carpenter skill levels.
The fact that newer hotels can accommodate more guests doesn't address the quality of carpentry work or explain why older hotels have better carpentry. Guest capacity and carpentry quality are unrelated factors. This choice doesn't weaken the conclusion about carpenter skill differences between the two time periods.
This choice actually supports the author's argument rather than weakening it. If the materials available to carpenters before and after 1930 were similar in quality, then material differences can't explain the superior carpentry in older hotels. This would strengthen the conclusion that the carpenters themselves (their skill, care, and effort) must be the reason for the quality difference.
This is the correct answer because it provides an alternative explanation for the observed pattern. Instead of all pre-1930 carpenters being more skilled, we might be seeing survivorship bias. Hotels with poor carpentry from before 1930 would have been more likely to deteriorate and be demolished over time, while only the well-built ones survived for the writer to observe. This means the writer's sample of pre-1930 hotels is biased toward the best examples, making it appear as though all old carpenters were superior when that may not be true.
This choice actually supports the author's argument by providing a reason why modern carpenters might be less skilled - shorter apprenticeships could mean less training and skill development. If anything, this strengthens the conclusion that pre-1930 carpenters were more skilled than post-1930 carpenters.